“PG&E and the City and County of San Francisco Investigate Power Outages at Candlestick Park

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 19, 2011 — Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) issued the following statement from Geisha Williams, executive vice president of electric operations, about the power outages that impacted Candlestick Park this evening:

PG&E is working closely with the City and County of San Francisco, owner and operator of Candlestick Park, to determine the cause of tonight’s power outages. The first priority for both PG&E and the City and County has been to get the power restored as quickly and safely as possible and keep the power on through the rest of the game. Determining exactly what happened and working to prevent something like this from happening again is very important to everyone involved.

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company”

And from SFGov:

“MAYOR LEE’S STATEMENT ON POWER OUTAGES AT CANDLESTICK PARK

Mayor Edwin M. Lee today issued the following statement on the electric power outages at Candlestick Park at tonight’s San Francisco 49ers vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Monday Night Football game:

“Following the loss of electric power to Candlestick Park before kickoff this evening, I directed our Police, Fire and Recreation & Park Departments and our Public Utilities Commission to work closely with the 49ers and PG&E to ensure that maintaining public safety and restoring power to the stadium were the top priorities. City staff worked immediately to deliver backup power and support PG&E staff in their repairs.

I have directed Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White and SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington to conduct a full investigation into the cause of both outages and, with PG&E, identify immediate actions that must be taken to prevent incidents such as this from happening again.

Tonight we all share in tremendous pride for our San Francisco 49ers. We must make every effort to support continued victories for the team and fans across the Bay Area in the weeks ahead.”

You’ve got the box filled with whatnot mounted on the right side of an exisiting wooden phone pole, the all-important cylindrical antenna up high on the left , and down below you’ve got a soothing sign from Next G complete with a phone number for a real live person, basically a counselor who will talk you down from your anti-technology panic attack.

Hurray!

Click to expand

(Personally, I think that anybody what wants to stop a cell phone antenna from being put wherever an engineer wants to put it should be required to complete an environmental impact report first, you know, so we can calculate the effect of a lack of utility service on the Commonweal.)

I don’t know, seems as if PG&E’s cozy relationship with the CA PUC would be the focus of any protest out in front of Clint Reilly’s building at 465 California Street last night, but the anti-SmartMeter people seemed to dominate.

See? Despite what the headlines say, they’re here right now. They’ve been radiating away in town for so long they’re dusty and stuff. And you haven’t died yet, right?

Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to bend the rules in order to spray you with chemicals from the air in order to fight the Light Brown Apple Moth in order to protect some industry that you don’t give a whit about? Well, that was a different situation, we can talk about that sometime.

But SmartMeters, they can’t hurt you. Yes, even you, even if you are “especially sensitive” to SmartMeters.

So don’t throw yourself in front of the fleet of trucks coming down Lombard or anything. You should allow the installation workers to come onto your propertah, cause, you know, you have nothing to fear.

And if anybody tells you any different, they are, best case scenario, patronizing you…

As seen in San Francisco back in 2010, broadcasting your private personal information about how much of the G in PG&E you’ve been using. The ‘lectricity SmartMeters look a little different:

Anyway, leave us review the sitch from last year at Fulton and Central and then get an update from this week.

Back in the day, you’d need a big, tall, ugly (or not so ugly) monopole tower reaching up to the heavens to get your cell phone to work. But these days, cellie transmitters are mounted just above your heads, just like this one recently installed on Fulton Street in the Western Addition / NOPA area.

Click to expand:

These new-school transceivers that our corporate overlords at AT&T and T Mobile have seen fit to use rely heavily upon fiber optic cables. And That’s A Good Thing, per NextG Networks, which adores these things.

See their sign? It’s alarming and reassuring at the same time. Go ahead and call them up, they’ll answer. I don’t think they really want you to call them over there (I think it’s Delaware or someplace) but they’d prefer that you give them a ring if you’re totally freaking out or something. The last thing they want is you starting a new NIMBY group:

(I don’t know how people are supposed to read the fine print on these signs if they’re mounted so high.)

And here’s the mise-en-scene with a recent photo from the boys at Google (I’ve never seen a woman driving a Google Maps car, wonder why…) Can you see the white warning sign and then the gray PowerWave box down low? Well that box is connected to the Giant Beige Cylinder of Death jutting out over the street. See how somebody took care to make sure it didn’t get blocked too much by the building on the corner? And NIMBYs, how would you like to open your third floor bedroom window only to see a GBCOD antenna hard at work?

Say hello to my little friend. Didn’t know what this thing was at first, but, in context, it can only be an antenna. This is new part, I’ve figured out where / what the antenna is – hadn’t noticed it before…

But are we safe what with all that RF floating around? I don’t know. Probably. Do the NIMBYs know about all these boxes and antennas being mounted on existing telephone poles? I don’t know, probably not.

“Hart says the electromagnetic frequency, the EMF, which is used to remotely send information from the SmartMeter on the side of your home to PG&E can make people sick.”

I don’t think so, pardner. Anyway, concerns persist over the electromagnetic fields surrounding these rigs. So, PG&E is taking steps today to make sure you get all the paliative cliches you can handle. Read all about what they’re going to do after the jump.

If trees are so great and if a five-yard-wide median is such an improvement, why stop there? Why not have more trees in the middle of Cesar Chavez? Why not have a 30-foot-wide median instead?

But no worry. The so-called “improvements” coming our way will “compliment” something or other. See?

“These streetscape improvements and more will make Cesar Chavez a great and complete street— one that compliments the community.”

A thousand years since Alhazen worked out perspective, but our art students still haven’t gotten the word. Oh well, two vanishing points for the price of one:

Somebody will end up using this space for something, is all I know.

Cesar Chavez Streetscape Improvement ProjectProject Information
The Cesar Chavez Streetscape Improvement Project is a multi- agency effort initiative to re-envision Cesar Chavez Street from Hampshire to Guerrero Streets in the Mission District. Through the coordinated efforts of multiple city organizations and with input from community meetings, Cesar Chavez will be made into an enjoyable, safe, and visually attractive corridor for pedestrians, bikes, and transit options that unify our great city.
The inclusion of a widened and landscaped center median, and tree plantings along sidewalks will provide pleasing greenery to the area neighborhood. These efforts are known to calm traffic along busy corridors. Street corner bulb-outs, shorter crossing distances at intersections, and the installation of bike lanes will also make this a safer street environment for everyone. These streetscape improvements and more will make Cesar Chavez a great and complete street— one that compliments the community.